PK-ow!
Smash Lord
There's something wrong with this argument....
MK does bend a rule. Just because he works within the mechanics doesn't mean he can't do something broken in them.
If his attacks really were so fast that they had no risk, he would be unbeatably good wouldn't he? If he had hitstun, but Melee hitstun while everyone else had Brawl hitstun, that would just be attention-grabbingly bizarre, wouldn't it?
Not only that, but we already have the fact of his attacks having transcendent priority - all of them - plus the special case of him being able to completely beat an air dodge on anyone without high air speed because his upair is so fast.
There's the fact of his up-special being ridiculously safe, his Tornado being ridiculously safe, and the nair having full functionality throughout its duration, even so much as to combo into its own weak hit, plus having KO power.
His moves have combinations of things other characters do, but combinations that on the very face of them are clear violations of what could be taken to be constants: Kill powered moves are risky or difficult or slow. Except MK has Dsmash. I didn't know it was frame 5.
I am also very moved by the claims just about his Dimensional Cape. It's true, it is tough to detect fractions of use in practice.
Lastly, the notion that MK is not unsafe off the stage carries a lot of weight. It carries as much weight as, independently, the need for something urgent about planking weighs. In Smash, for Smash to operate, it can be seen that offstage has to carry risk. The game is played onstage, where characters must return else they will lose a stock. Characters may threaten each other offstage, but only by giving the opportunity to be K.O.d. MK really does appear to beat this relationship. He flies over top of it.
The banning of walk-offs even failing chaingrabs tells a hint about the Received View of Smash.
My question is, what could possibly be found that would put him in his place? His abilities are not going to go away. Other chars have to come up with something that beats what he is. And, it is not like he has advanced, specialized matchup knowledge. What he is, is a character that is so fast, strong, and resilient that players can universally pick him up and perform better, shutting down good players in small localities,
I believe that a major blow could be dealt if the "all the people who flocked to MK put his metagame in hyperdrive" argument can be dismantled. If that happened, then it what sense are we not allowed to say "The game is NOT young, there is only so much more room left for growth"?
Yet through all this, there is still the claim that at the high level, there are people representing "not MK" and winning. So long as that is true. . . I cannot support a ban. Not unless it is decided that the utter swarming of mid-level competition that is occurring, matters. I think it does. But it's hard to support that position in a principled manner.
Whoever designed Meta Knight is a Smash genius. And he hates us.
